


Switch

by Anonymous_Creator



Category: Critical Role (Web Series) RPF
Genre: BDSM, Dom/sub, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Rating: PG13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 23:37:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17069372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonymous_Creator/pseuds/Anonymous_Creator
Summary: Clear communication is the backbone of a healthy relationship. Still, sometimes it's hard to find the courage to ask for change.





	Switch

**Author's Note:**

> The first rule of shipping real life humans is -- don't ship the real life humans. Especially don't ship them anywhere they can SEE it. And for the good grace of green apples don't mention it in places outside of this. This is weird. You're here too, welcome to my weird, weirdling. Enjoy it, but let's respect the real life humans and keep it on the down low.
> 
> I also appreciate comments, all that being said. If you're feeling brave.

Liam settled on the couch and scooted over a few inches. His head rested in Taliesin’s lap. The TV had something on at a low volume while subtitles scrolled. Taliesin set down his book and gently rested his hand on Liam’s head.

“Well, I take it this wasn’t just a work visit?” Taliesin seemed genuinely amused.

Liam let his body relax with that touch. Familiar and warm and comforting and also something more than all of that. He knew the house needed picked up and there was work on his laptop he could be doing. They both needed to find something to eat and talk about the next round of content on the channel. It wasn’t that any of that stopped being true.

It just got softened, somehow. Eased. Liam sighed deeply as Taliesin gently massaged his temples with deft fingers.

“You want to talk about it?” Tal said in a polite, friendly tone.

Liam felt his face scrunch into a painful grimace. He rubbed a hand over his eyes to reset his brain. 

Taliesin rested his hand on Liam’s shoulder and waited. Time passed quietly between the two of them.

Liam tried to speak a few times but swallowed his words. To hell with this. It was time to get this out in the open and said.

“I’d very much like to spank you.” His eyes ached from squeezing them closed. It felt too much like waiting for a physical blow to strike at him as his heart beat wildly in his chest.

The hand on his shoulder twitched and then fell still.

“Oh,” Tal said with a soft exhalation. “That is a change of pace.”

The longing that clung to those innocent words startled him. He dared to open his eyes.

Taliesin looked down at him with a focus that was disarming.

“How do you imagine this would occur?” Tal asked. The air nearly vibrated between them.

Liam pulled himself up and sat next to Taliesin on the couch. “I’d very much like to top you. I have no idea what I would do beyond that, and I don’t know how to dominate anyone, let alone you. I’d like to just be…us. But with the play.”

Something in Taliesin shifted and clicked and whirled. The intensity dialed back from a radiating sun to something more familiar.

“I appreciate the clarity,” he said. He smiled with a devilish and playful charm.

Liam felt the pressure change as clearly as if he’d dropped a thousand feet in altitude in seconds. It made everything easier and yet there was a palpable loss. He couldn’t let that go.

“You’d want more than that.”Fact. Not supposition.

Taliesin dipped his chin and rested his hand next to his nose, his elbow draped over the couch. “Half the fun of being your Dom is keeping one step ahead of that magnificent brain of yours.” A gentle touch as a hand rested on Liam's thigh.  “You know I switch, Liam. It’s just not too common for me to switch with someone who’s been serving so sweetly. Someone who I brought into the community.” He sighed and there was something painful there.

Tal shifted and tried to ease a phantom discomfort.

Liam reached up and offered his hand to Tal, the palm an inch from his cheek. Tal quirked his head for a moment before leaning into that touch.

“I don’t know if I can offer you everything you provide to me. It isn’t what I’m familiar with.” Liam ran his free hand along Taliesin's arm and interlocked his fingers. “You wanting this. Maybe wanting more. It’s going to need some time to percolate up in here.” He released Tal’s hand for a moment to tap his forehead.

“Well,” Taliesin said, “I’ll be the experienced one and say I’m not going to do anything today, even the lightest of play.”

The pang in his chest was a real weight that dragged him down from his half giddy and racing thoughts and back into his comfortably disheveled living room, complete with an ancient, pilled blanket half spilled on the floor and a few errant books under the coffee table.

“Have I done something wrong—”

“No, No. Stop. It’s nothing like that.”

“Okay, what is it, exactly?” Liam wished he didn’t sound so alarmed. Why had he approached this so bluntly. He’d made a muck of it.

“You’ve got me too keyed up to do things properly.” Tal said with a sudden forcefulness. He stood up from the couch and paced the limited room available to him. His hands ran through his blue and lavender mohawk a few times before heinterlaced his fingers over the back of his head as he moved.

Liam stood up as well and awkwardly held out a hand towards Tal. “Look. It’s fine. Of course we don’t do anything if you don’t want to. We can talk about this more later and figure out the details.” Because that’s what responsible, kinky friends did.

Why did it feel so awful to be a good person today?

Tal pivoted, one foot leading a change in direction that swung him around to face Liam.

“Damn you and your ideas.” Tal closed the distance and gripped Liam tightly. Lips crushed against his and Liam ran his hands up Taliesin’s side as they licked and nipped and fought to see who could capture a lower lip for a gentle bite.

Heavy breathes later he pulled away and put a finger on Tal’s lips.

“We’ll talk. Soon. Very soon. But like you said. Not today.”

Liam felt the chuckle as Tal’s lips twitched into a smile. Taliesin managed to nod his head before he took a step back and to the right. Tal turned and picked up his jacket.

“Leaving?” Liam said. He quickly snatched Taliesin’s book from the couch and held it out to him.

“I need some time to think, and being around you like this won’t help that.” He waved off the book. “I’ll get around to it later. Not going to be devouring that dry muck tonight.”

Liam nodded. He was more than a bit bruised in the place that his strange, kinky, subby, possibly toppy persona lay awaiting a bit of attention. Still. This was part of the lifestyle.

“Text when you get back to your place. We’ll pick this up tomorrow, then.”

The kiss on his cheek was chaste and proper and left Liam gently thudding his forehead on the door after Tal left.

That was okay. Two could play at that game.

Liam stopped to consider what that really meant. He flopped bonelessly onto the couch and swung his feet onto the leather ottoman.

Taliesin was a switch. He’d known that. Taliesin didn’t usually switch with those he Dom’d. Not so good. But that damned heat when he’d first brought up the idea.

The desire. Plainly writ and oh so inviting.

Liam replayed that entire conversation in his head. He muttered his own parts like every normal to moderately crazy adult when left to their own devices.

He wanted the more. The other.

Liam spent his free time around the home wondering how the idea of lightly spanking his friend had evolved so rapidly into something else. Their usual session was tomorrow evening. Time enough to get his head together? What about Taliesin?

His phone vibrated in his pocket.

An attachment. Liam looked through the document without breathing. When he reached the end he set his phone down on the ottoman and wiped his hands on his jeans. His home laptop snapped open a few minutes later once he found the damn thing under a pile of folded towels that hadn’t made it to their final destination.

He opened the attachment there and read through it. Twice.

Liam opened a copy of the document. He skipped down to the lines that came after his name and watched the cursor blink. Blink. Blink.

“The role I’d like to discuss pursuing (Dom/Sub/Switch/Top/Bottom/Other): __________”


End file.
